


someone with no soul

by clandestineClairvoyant



Category: Barry (TV 2018), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Manifesting as Nausea, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Richie Tozier has a twin he forgot, people forget siblings this is canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22073446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clandestineClairvoyant/pseuds/clandestineClairvoyant
Summary: “What I’m trying to tell you, Audra, is that I haven’t even thought of George in twenty years or more.”“But you told me you had a brother named-““I repeated a fact,” he said. “That was all. His name was a word. It cast no shadow at all in my mind.”“Are you telling me you never thought of him at all?”“Yes. I am. Not until today Audra.”Richie Tozier has a twin brother. Not that either of them remember yet- and he just happens to be on the golden coast when Richie gets a call to come home.
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 33
Kudos: 72





	1. Barry

The dream that he wakes up from is.

Weird.

Barry doesn’t have many fond memories from his childhood. A tooth-socket sore gap where his early teens had been, and a dreary trickle of eating vegetables and brushing teeth and the smell of pencil shavings. Pretty much until he joined the military.

He’s not _unusual_. The number of guys in basic training who had nightmares, sleep walked, pulled knives and jerked it in the top bunk heedless of who was trying to get some fucking sleep was more common than the legacy cases. Kids who joined because Daddy dearest had gotten commission back in the day. Kids who weren’t smart enough to make it to college on scholarship, and not loveable enough for a free ride.

Him not really remembering, or caring to remember his early childhood, was only curious in the occasional polite conversation that came up over training. Playing cards under a flickering safety lamp. Scrubbing in the showers, polishing boots, shoveling chili-mac MRE’s down in the shadow of the Humvee and keeping an eye on the ridge.

_(Hey guys, Berkman doesn’t remember his childhood, what kind of dick-sucking trauma are you trying to hide pal? Hey, pass the gun oil and lemme tell you about some_ real _dick-sucking trauma in Kunsan-)_

But now, as a strange heavy lassitude weighs him down and his eyes roll dry in their sockets, looking around the steep gray walls of concrete now pressing around him, he thinks, why don’t I remember?

Never really bothered him before.

The dream unravels strangely, with a thick humid smell of decaying leaves and rotting water clogging his throat, and sharp cold stone slimy with mold and the lapping of his own breathing echoing harshly back off of close walls. Jagged in his ears. He wonders why it sounds so strange at first, until he realizes,

_Oh._

_I’m small._

He looks down through the muck clumping his lashes together, to see he’s up to his chest in gray, oil-slick water. The smell is so distinct, so real, that unknowingly back in his bed where his body lies sleeping Barry gags drily, rolls out of the puddle of sweat he’s lying in and clutches a rough-weave sheet in a damp fist, his brow pinched in consternation.

His hand is pale as chalk and pruned in the dream, flecked with grit and debris from the water and dripping. His nails are black crescents of dirt, caked into the folds of his wrist and knuckles. He can feel the irritating split of them where they’ve been roughed against stone, so real, turning to look at his naked empty palm and the shaking fingers. They’re smaller, not callused by guns, not dusted with dark hair.

Something is in the water. He knows it. Knows it in the same way you see a shadow moving under a door, and know there’s someone putting weight on the wood on the opposite side. He wishes he had a gun, a knife, something. He feels sure that the underwater something’s coming, his hair prickling up in a shivery way that starts in his knees and crawls up his thighs, the certainty smooth and cold as the water he’s starting to move through.

Not fast enough, but he’s _moving_ , desperate. He’s not sure why, doesn’t remember clearly through the dream fog, until he hears something over his own thin breathing and splashing limbs.

Something laughs, in the dark, and Barry thinks, even as tears heat his eyes and shuts his throat straw-tight with fear, that someone should be there.

Something’s missing.

He doesn’t know what, but it’s out there somewhere. He trudges through the water to find it, find them, but he doesn’t.

He’s alone, and scared.

When he wakes in Cleveland, Fuches knocking on his window, it’s to the humiliating feel of wetness running down his face and soaking his pillowcase.

* * *

Admittedly, Barry probably should have realized something else was wrong the minute he touched down in LAX.

He hadn’t slept well on the plane after Fuches had bundled him up and shoved him into the car. The two-hour drive had only served to wake him up, and the plane had kept him that way. He _never_ slept well, but after the Rochester job it’s been. Worse. 

It’s only the familiar color-wash clarity of being “On the Job” that keeps him upright and walking through the LAX terminal, backpack on his shoulder and the bleary remains of some unsettling dream slowly sliding out of his memory. Something about sand, and music. Tunnels. Something red?

He loses the thread and blinks under the harsh fluorescents of the airport. A plane takes off and it shakes the full bank of glass windows to his left. People stream around him where he’s paused on the hideous airport carpet, frowning.

His head hurts.

He seeks temporary refuge from the bustle in a shop, narrowly avoiding being run over by a triple decker stroller on his way in.

He’s no _stranger_ to disruptive dreams- he’d seen a therapist long enough to learn how to pull himself out of PTSD episodes, and put sticky notes with encouraging smiley faces on them onto his mirror when he felt like sticking his head in the oven for a quick nap- but this one feels anchorless. More like a memory then his brain trying to tell him anything subconsciously.

Barry posts up in one of the further aisles, blearily blinking down at his feet, surprising a man in a shabby suit as he’s coming out wielding an overpriced NY Times Bestseller. They scoot around each other, Barry still slightly hunched from the weight of his backpack and murmuring some inane nicety.

There’s an American flag and guns on the front of the book. He watches from the corner of his eye as the man checks out, making small talk with the incredibly recalcitrant cashier girl. Barry’s head still hurts, but it’s for a different reason now that the dull roar of the crowded airport has been muffled to a whisper by shelves and glass-front.

“Hi? Uh. Oh my gosh,” comes a faintly valley-girl voice as he stands waveringly in front of the shelves, quiet, distinct in his attention if only because he’s fresh off a plane from the Midwest.

He doesn’t look up, doesn’t even _think_ someone could be talking to him, and continues staring in blank bewilderment at the airport kiosk full of flip flops with bottle openers in the sole.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” comes the voice again, insistent this time. “But are you Richie Tozier?”

There’s movement in the corner of his eye as someone enters his line of sight and Barry flinches, hand going out to steady the display of unhygienic foot-slash-kitchen ware. He’d come nowhere near it with his jerking elbow, but now proceeds to make it worse with an attention-getting clatter as one shoe makes a bid for freedom and sunglasses fall off the other side of the display.

The girl speaking to him looks surprised, hand going up to cover her pink-glossed mouth, and a disbelieving, delighted look still crinkling her eyes. Like she’d just seen a puppy do a trick, and not a six-foot-two man almost pull a gun on her.

Not that she’d know what Barry’s twitch was for, but his heart’s still racing as he puts a palm flat against his jeaned leg to keep it still. Not that he even has a _gun_ on him. She gives that school-girl giggle Barry recognizes from someone meeting a celebrity, and he blinks at her in bewilderment.

He looks briefly around for someone else she could possibly be talking to, over his shoulder, side to side and marking the single camera winking in the back of the store. But besides an old woman with a neck pillow surveying the phone chargers with regal, icy dispassion, and the clerk who’s finished ringing up business-man, they’re alone in the close quarters of the LAX travel shop.

There’s the throng of people outside the store, a steady river of human traffic and rolling luggage this close to the gate that’s impossible to pick individual sounds out of. Just a susurrus of wheels and shoes on tile, and the occasional baby crying or phone ringing.

“Uh,” he stoops and picks up the flipflop, face burning and now hyper aware of the angle of the camera as he haltingly hooks it back onto the rack. He’s glad he always makes an unconscious habit of angling himself away from them. “No? Who’s. Who’s Richie Tozier.”

She blinks at him in surprise, now staring harder. Her hair is in a scrunchie, denim jacket, no visible weapons but Barry’s always concerned at what women can slip in cleavage and waistlines. You’d think it would be harder to hide weapons with tighter clothing, but nope- _curves,_ man.

“You know, the comedian? He did uh, what was it-” she snaps her fingers, like gun-pops, Barry flinching again. “The special! The ‘What’s New’ special you know- Wait, why am I telling you, you’re him, you’re Richie Tozier there’s no way you’re not?”

She laughs in delight, like she’s in on a joke with him. “I get it, sorry for bothering you, just,” she brushes her hair back and gives him a cheesy finger gun and wink, like she’s mimicking something. “The fun’s just getting started! Or however the line goes, right? Great meeting you!”

And before he can stop her, or pull a knife, or something that will without a doubt get him tackled by five different TSA guys, she gives him a handshake with both her hands over his. This time his elbow _does_ connect with the display, but luckily nothing falls, although he’s not quick enough to escape the grab. The rack just gives a desultory spin, changing sides to display sunglasses.

“Great. Meeting you?” he tries, staring at her retreating back as she flounces out of the store with a self-satisfied air. He catches a glimpse of her between two families of people while he’s standing there, trying to clock what just happened, hand still hanging in front of him. She’s meeting with a friend, and the two lean close together, giggling and pointing a couple times back towards him with disbelief.

It sets his nerves on fire, especially once people start looking in interest, sniffing a celebrity sighting of some sort, even though he’s _not_ , he’s a fucking ex-marine here for vacation. At least he is as far as the goddamn nosy gates agent who’d asked him is concerned.

Not like he’s going to tell them, oh me? I’m here to kill some idiot and get under paid and maybe if I’m lucky I’ll see some B-list actor to tell an ex-marine buddy about at the bar, before I have to go home and play _Need for Speed_ to keep from swallowing a fucking bullet.

Hard to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame though, if this girl put him in jail. Or on a watch list.

Sensing an impending disaster, like someone _taking his picture_ , or worse, _asking for an autograph_ , Barry hauls ass out of there.

He buys a cheap pair of sunglasses and an overpriced “I heart L.A” hat on the way out of the store. The clerk is eyeing him now with interest after seeing the girl gush over him, but his stony jaw and impassive, unblinking glare two inches to the left of their shoulder must get the point across, because they just ring him up and keep their mouth shut.

The relief after jamming the hat and sunglasses on is immense, and he relaxes enough to loosen his sweaty white-knuckled grip on his backpack strap. It seems to work well enough that he doesn’t get ambushed on his way out of the airport, although he thinks he sees someone lift their phone towards him when he’s on his way past the luggage carousel. The evasive pause he takes behind a pillar to ‘check his phone’ does the trick of at least getting them to put the phone down- whether because they _were_ trying to take his picture or not, he doesn’t know, but he speed walks right out into the California sunshine like there’s fire licking his heels.

The baked cement smell and heat of the city hits him like a punch to the gut after the canned, freezer fresh air of the hermetically sealed plane and then the airport. He immediately feels sweat prickle under his arms and along his ribs, beading in his hairline under the hat that still has the price tag tickling the back of his neck. His dark long-sleeve doesn’t help, even if it’s professional, _and_ comfortable enough to sleep in on the plane, _thanks_ Fuches.

He rips the price tag off and flings it to the ground, heading across the pickup lanes and making for the parking lot where Fuches _better_ have a car waiting for him. And if it doesn’t have AC this is the _last_ time he lets Fuches set up a ride. 

While he walks, he draws his phone out of his jeans pocket and thumbs it on, carefully bringing up google with a hand cupped to reduce the glare on the screen.

Narrowly avoiding getting hit by a Toyota as he walks, Barry laboriously types in, R-I-C-H-I-E, T-O-Z-I-E-R.

The results aren’t… Great.

* * *

“Hey _Fuches_? Hey, _hey hey, Fuches_?” Barry hisses into his phone ten minutes later, drumming a beat on the steering wheel and ass burning on the seatbelt buckle he’d sat on. The piece of shit car Fuches had left him has air conditioning, _barely_ , blowing weak luke-warm air that smells like wet leather from only half the vents. The first gust had made him sneeze from the dust and dirt caked into the system when he’d thrown himself into the driver seat and started it up.

_“Who the fuck is Richie Tozier?”_

He couldn’t look at his phone while the call was up, but the image had been there just a second before he’d dialed his handler with shaking fingers. Richie Tozier, glasses, slightly longer more unkempt hair, gaunt and square and lanky and with a wide mobile mouth he pulled into exaggerated grimaces during the short clip of an interview show he’d watched. The rest was on showtime or some shit.

It had been funny, but Barry isn’t laughing. His heart’s hammering too hard.

That was his face. He’d numbly watched in silence, before smearing a finger across pause and shakily dialing Fuches.

_“Richie Tozier? The SNL guy? I don’t know he- Oh hey haha! Did I ever tell you he looks just like you? Shit’s crazy! I think he did some Christmas host thing last December and I’d been thinking-”_

“Uh, no Fuches you did not tell me. Hmmmm funny little slip of the mind _\- Fuches he has my whole fucking face,_ ” he snaps into the phone, running a hand through his own more well-kept hair. He hadn’t gotten it cut in a while, had felt kinda... _Slow_ , before Fuches had shown up with the job. So now it curls along his neck in the half-assed ringlets he gets. That _Richie fucking Tozier_ gets, apparently.

Barry’s hyperconscious of the similarities and differences now, avoiding his own reflection in the cracked rear-view mirror. Of the way he parts his hair, the crooked teeth he thinks might be different from Tozier’s, the same curve of his jaw that might be the slightest bit thinner in the cheeks.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do the job when people are asking me for autographs? I showed up to the airport and someone almost got a picture of me on their phone.”

He hears clicking on the other end, some rustling and the creak-groan of a middle-aged leaning-towards-old man getting up and moving to a seat. He sighs like Barry’s _bothering him_ , and he has to mentally remind himself that he’s freaking out, to just _calm down_.

Sticky notes on mirrors. In for three, out for five. Fingers gripping the hot cracked plastic of the steering wheel, eyes blinking quickly- _he’s fine._

Fuches is quiet for a bit, humming and grunting, and clicking his tongue against his teeth thoughtfully. It gives Barry time to slowly breathe in and out, cheeks puffing slightly, resting against the arch of the steering wheel with his sweaty forehead. Finally- after what feels like forever, but is probably only half a minute- Fuches whistles.

_“Wow, holy shit would you look at that. He does look just fucking like you! Hey Barry, you got a twin brother I don’t know about?”_ He laughs over the line, the sound hectic through the tinny speaker and Barry just thumps a hand harder against the wheel. There’s no one else in the garage but even so, he’s careful to keep his irritation subtle.

“Fuches you _knew_ my dad, I don’t have a brother.”

There’s silence on the other end, some more clicking. Just when Barry starts to frown and think, _too long, he’s been quiet for too long_ -

Fuches sighs, long and low.

_“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. He hasn’t been popular enough recently to notice until now maybe? Looks like he did some SNL, but you’re a fucking hermit and the Midwest isn’t exactly the pinnacle of liberal comedy. Still, it is weird. You really haven’t gotten any weird looks about this before?”_

Barry tries to think, but can’t recall. Which is impossible. Even if Tozier just recently reached modest public figure, Barry should have been approached before now. There’s no fucking way. He’s a little fuller in the face maybe, a little more muscled, but even their fucking _beard_ grows in the same way.

His mind is racing but he’s quiet, thinking. Luckily, that doesn’t stop his handler one bit. Fuches is writing it off, is telling him to just do the job and come back and they’d re-assess. Figure something out.

The phone buzzes in his ear after a few moments, loud enough to fill the car outside of the subsonic thrum of jet-planes taking off and landing over the parking garage. He slowly clicks it off and drops it in the grimy cup holder, and starts the car.

He barely remembers navigating the tangled loop of roads and pick-up terminals to exit the airport, the hot west coast sun dazzling his eyes even through the dirty windshield and off the top of the weather-matte hood of the car.

Barry is driving down the interstate, reminding himself why he fucking hates west-coast traffic, and he’s thinking.

Barry’s figured out two things from his conversation with Fuches.

One, is something weird is going on. He doesn’t like the water-on-glass feeling he has in his head, trying to remember if anyone had ever mistaken him for Tozier. He doesn’t know if he’s going crazy, or dreaming, or. Was dreaming. Waking up. Or something.

Thing two; Fuches is lying.

He doesn’t know what _about_ , but Fuches knew something on the phone. Barry could hear it in the pause, and in the dismissive way he’d told Barry to just come home when you’re done, I’ll get something better lined up, maybe something in Michigan ya know-

Barry heads towards Ryan Madison’s job, but he doesn’t like the way his hands are shaking where they grip the steering wheel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys Nomily was very encouraging and helped me correct a lot of grammar and punctuation so give them so love. 2020 is the year I FINISH things, and I've been deeply obsessed with the Stephen King canon for awhile. 
> 
> Not sure if it comes through, but I always headcanon Barry as a little bit on the spectrum, and struggling with depression on top of his combat PTSD. I read the script for episode one and yowza. His struggle to connect with people and quick fixation on things sort of gives me that vibe- And in a town like Derry? Smh. IDK. I'm not on the spectrum myself, so if anyone has any comments or critiques or recommendations I'd be happy to hear them! I hope I do this fic justice because I've been craving this even more than those Richie-Tozier-Secret-Hitman crossovers we're thrown.


	2. The Ryan Madison Job

_Barry first sees the dog when he’s walking home from school. He’s twelve._

_It’s a brown dog. With mottles of black that could be brindle or could be mud. Mud was logical, in the reservoir-like dip that the Barrens formed between Derry township and the landfill; Like a giant, damp thumb-print full of abandoned appliances, sticky grey mud, and jungle-like vegetation of the choking scrub variety._

_At the sight of Barry it wags its tail, hesitant. Hunched like a question mark, with the punctuation of its head bullet-shaped with flattened ears, and grimacing yellow teeth. It’s tail hugs it’s haunches, only the very tip of it wiggling between its legs and in the dirt. Scared, but excited to see him. Its ribs stick out, fur short and a spotted with bald patches, its spine more like a tectonic ridge of brown down it’s back than bone._

_It looks hungry._

_Barry doesn’t move towards it, mindful of its yellow eyes and teeth. He can see the hopeful whine inflating and deflating its piano-ribs, even if he can’t hear it from the distance. He takes his backpack off and digs in it, pulling out the leftovers from his lunch; half a snack cake he was going to eat later under the covers with Richie while they read comic books, and the crusts of his sandwich still neatly wrapped in the paper bag._

_He throws them down the ridge, and the dog skitters like it expected a rock._

_He buttons back up and leaves, but when he looks back, he sees the dog slinking up the slope like a snake, nose twitching and tail sweeping leaves like a rattler with its wiggling tail._

_It scarfs the food, and Barry turns his attention back to walking, and not getting mud on his school shoes._

* * *

Barry stares at Ryan Madison’s cooling body.

Things had been going _well_. He’d had a good day.

The engine is still ticking. That could also be the street light above his head. Could be his teeth creaking, as he clenches them and stares into Ryan’s slack, pale face. The strawberry red hole in his forehead leaks clear fluid and blood down between his eyes, and into his dark, gaping mouth.

_I just paused to load my gun_ , he thinks, finger trembling on the stock. _I followed him three cars back the whole way here, and I just paused to load my gun_ , _because who the_ fuck _drives with a loaded gun if they don’t have to-_

There’s a bullet hole in the windshield, and Barry looks at it, his eyes following the trajectory.

A truck down the street. Someone out of the roof. He’s only been standing here for less than ten seconds, although it feels longer.

“Hey man.” He says, slow and careful and casual even as his pulse picks up in his neck in the same ticking speed as the cooling engine. The person out the roof doesn’t answer, just reaches down and lifts something.

His heart flutters with a familiar cold wash of adrenaline, but his hands _steady_.

He says, voice carrying across the street, “Don’t you pull that gun on me.”

The man scrambles, smooth and controlled. Professional, but clearly struggling with something as he reloads and claws at the slide and stock, and Barry hears a sound he became intimately familiar with on three Afghanistan tours:

The sound of a rifle jamming.

“Don’t you pull that gun on me,” he says again, as if the guy hadn’t _heard_ him. He points the glock and looks down the barrel of the guy’s rifle as it’s moved up, a now clear _snick-schk_ echoing. He’s impressed. The guy cleared that jam fast.

But Barry’s faster. His finger’s pulling the trigger even as the rifle swings up.

Two shots into the sniper. Two into NoHo Hank, that goddamn Chechnan son of a bitch, right through the window, and three into the driver. It’s always quiet. The pop of the gun, the ice-crunch of the safety glass breaking. It’s fast too, _one-two, three-four, five-six-seven_. Short sharp pops that are unmistakable for anything else, especially since Fuches never gave him a goddamn _silencer_.

The sound of the blood in his ears is overwhelming, pounding now that the gun is quiet, after-shocks tingling his fingers as he clears the chambers and reloads the gun, circling to the other side to clear the scene. Double taps all except for the triple, and he knows he didn’t miss.

“Fuck,” He says. Ryan Madison’s engine ticks some more, truck still running, and he hears a dog start barking in the distance. The air is cool, his face hot from blood and adrenaline. He can almost _see_ people in the houses around dialing the police. Still in bed, not stupid enough to peer out their windows when it could be gang violence, when someone might see their pale, scared faces in the window curtain and take offense.

“ _Fuck_!” He says louder, as he turns, shoulders clenched in knots, stalking towards where he parked the piece of shit Camry. On instinct he strips the gun, throws the clip into the bushes and the stock down a storm drain. In a couple hours the automatic sprinklers would come on and fill the gutters, in spite of the clear white glare of summer that would be above them. If he was lucky, it’d wash away. For good measure he hurls his keys into the dark brambles surrounding someone’s front porch.

Barry remembers something like it when he was growing up. His pulse hammers in his throat and his head hurts as his eyes catch the dark for a moment, the splintered, peeling white of the latticed wood hiding the crawl space under the house.

He doesn’t remember his childhood, never has- but all of a sudden a vivid recollection hits him with all the force of a freight train. It comes with nausea, his eyes blinking quickly through stinging sweat, head aching.

* * *

  
  


_“_ You _go under there.”_

_“Fuck no Dickard,_ you _go under there. There’s probably a feral raccoon. Probably like,_ five _feral raccoons,” Barry returns, hand sweating in his baseball glove, and knee stinging from a slide across the lawn. Blood and grass and grit sticks to his knee and trickles down over his shin, sticking to the sweaty skin and leaving a tickle like a bug crawling down his leg. He ignores it, thumping a fist into his battered catchers mitt. “Maybe you all would get along.”_

_They’re eleven, born five minutes apart exactly, and Barry’s just selfishly happy to have Richie hanging out with him for once, and not his new friends._

_Even if Richie lost his ball._

_Richie barks out a laugh, getting on his hands and knees to peer into the dark depths of the wooden lattice surrounding their neighbors porch. Nothing but rotten leaves, some moldered newspaper, the pale white splintered bones of lizards who had been eaten by cats is visible in the silty gray dirt._

_Barry doesn’t want to say, but he’s too scared to climb under. He’s relieved that if Richie’s scared too, he isn’t showing it._

_He’s always taken his cues from Richie._

_“Yeah, maybe he’d want to be my new twin! You can live under the porch and give people rabies, and Barold-Two can come fart in my bed and read all my comics-”_

* * *

They never got the ball back, Barry remembers, rubbing his forehead where the throb is nesting right over his left eye, and saying one more fervent, heart-felt “ _Fuck_ ,” as he strips his gloves off. Twain's diner, right around the corner, lights the dirty pre-street-sweeper gray of the road in blocks of light. Barry slams a hand on the cold metal bar of the front door, just as he hears the beginning strains of sirens in the distance.

He walks in, heart calming and sweat cooling on his body, gloves tucked in his back pocket and car abandoned. He slides into a booth, and it's only a moment before the waitress comes by to take his order.

Her hair is dark and disheveled, but she’s friendly enough, especially for Los Angeles, with that comradery that comes from being one of only four people alive in the expanse of stark white linoleum and polished fifties-style chrome appliances. There’s one other person with their head down in a booth, methodically mowing through a huge, greasy trucker breakfast. The fry cook’s barely visible through the pick-up window, bopping to tunes in the kitchen, dreads barely contained in a massive hairnet.

As an ambulance screams by and the waitress pours coffee behind the bar, Barry digs his phone out, mouth dry and hands still damp from his gloves. The coffee’s set in front of him, and he nods a distracted thanks as he thumbs into the search bar, with careful concentration,

D-E-R-R-Y-M-A-I-N-E.

* * *

Richie’s reaching hour two over the toilet.

He’d made it home fine, waving off Steve’s concern and insisting he’d get some sleep. Food poisoning, you know how it is, no Steve it’s not _drugs_ , for fucks sake-

He wishes faintly that he _did_ have food poisoning. Anything would be better than the cramping in his stomach that starts higher than it should, a hard twist like a punch and a cold wash of nausea that starts at his toes and brings everything all the way up, until it’s spattering into the toilet.

The last time he was this sick he’d been about to go up on stage on his first night on SNL, shaking so badly that a crew-hand had carefully steered him to some equipment to sit down before he fell down, script clenched in one trembling sweaty hand, and scalp pricking under one of the freakishly realistic wigs they kept in a terrifying warehouse-style dressing room.

He’d finally gone up on cue, blacked out, and became aware again walking off stage to immense laughter from the crowd, and Kirsten grinning into his face while she tried to wring soup from her hair.

“Great job!” She’d said, grabbing his shoulder and squeezing it cheerfully. “Hey, if you’re gonna puke do it in that trashcan over there!” she’d added helpfully, pushing him towards a corner. Sure enough, there had been a trash can he’d grown intimately familiar with for the next couple years.

But even that was nothing compared to this… This crippling _dread_.

Richie gave one last heave into the toilet, trying as gently as he could not to burst something in his throat as he did. Finally feeling his stomach settle, he flushes to prevent whatever was in the toilet from setting him off again, the water swirling silently down into the heavy metal throat of his house to reach the sewers underneath.

Thank god for low flow toilets.

_Right to the ocean baby_ , he thinks a little deliriously, choosing to wash the taste from his mouth by reaching up to scoop his whiskey off the counter where he’d left it to condense. He gives a swish and a swallow, the cold ice hurting his teeth and cooling the sweat off his lip. He crackles and pops his way up to his feet, clothes sticking to him in a cold sweat and toiletry bag half packed where he’d left it in a scattered mess in his sink. His legs ache where he’d been resting them against the tile, no longer fit and young enough for the weekend-bender-recover position.

His reflection in the mirror is red-eyed and pale as he’s ever seen, a tremble almost slopping liquor over the side of the glass before he breathes out slow, bracing himself with a hand scrubbed through his hair and an elbow on the marble vanity.

Distantly in the house, he hears the front door open, and then click shut, night-time traffic noises drifting in before being summarily executed by the lock flipping shut behind whoever came in. Steve.

“You don’t have to sweep the place Steve! I said I’m clean!” Richie yells out, irritation twisting his face in the mirror until he rolls his eyes and drains his glass. Throat still burning and breathless from the swallow, he starts shoveling things into his bag, scattered in the bowl of the sink where nausea had overtaken him, and sent Richie to his knees next to his porcelain god.

Medication, razor he probably hasn’t used enough recently, hand-lotion, and a toothbrush that he eyeballs before shrugging and wetting under the faucet to stuff in his mouth. Handle sticking out, he opens the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, sticking the toothpaste he finds in next to his brush to squeeze enough arm-and-hammer directly into his mouth to brush with, before dropping it into his bag along with a dusty, unopened container of floss, and a cake of soap stolen from the Bellagio. It was shaped like a flower and Richie had been charmed enough to call down and ask for twenty more. The remaining three were gathering dust somewhere in his ex-girlfriends cupboards no doubt.

He starts brushing, opening his foaming mouth to yell for Steve to bring the whiskey in with him, when he shuts his medicine cabinet door.

His reflection stares back at him over the collar of a black turtle neck, and Richie blinks in surprise.

His reflection does not, and that’s when he notices his _real_ reflection with foam on his chin and two days worth of chin scruff over his jaws, blinking in bewilderment.

There’s two.

“Don’t scream,” His other reflection says quickly, holding up black-gloved hands- _one of which has a hand-gun in it._

The only reason Richie _doesn’t_ , is for two reasons;

One- his throat has shut like a whistle. Like when you’re dreaming and can’t wrench your mouth open to scream _anyway_. The sheer surprise of seeing someone with _your face,_ when you’d expected the angry Italian features of his five-foot and some change Italian-American stage manager seems to have that effect on him. The probably unhealthy amount of baking-soda derived toothpaste he just swallowed reflexively on top of the whiskey rolling in his stomach, probably doesn’t help.

And reason two, is he recognizes his own twin brother with a sudden painful, head-pounding clarity.

_“Barry?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY now we're getting into the actual It nonsense.  
>  The canon of Stephen Kings universe is a many legged thing. I didn't realize how much of it I knew until I started talking to my sister about Richie Tozier and Beverly Marsh dancing together in the park in 11/22/63, and Mike Hanlon- I believe- knowing the caretaker from the Shining. Or people being from Castle Rock, Salems Lot ALWAYS showing up in books, etc. I guess I'm... A fan or something??


End file.
